Deliberations in Annie George trial continue

In this file photo from Tuesday, March 5, Annie George, who is accused of enslaving an undocumented immigrant at her home in Rexford, leaves the Federal District Courthouse in downtown Albany after the first day of her trial. (Mike McMahon / The Record)

ALBANY -- After lawyers for both sides gave closing statements, jurors retired to begin deliberation in the case of Annie George, who faces up to ten years in prison for keeping Valsamma Mathai as a domestic servant in her family's Llenroc mansion in Rexford.

Earlier Thursday, George took the stand for the second time in two days and faced a battery of questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Bellis.

Confronted with a recording of a telephone conversation in which prosecutors say she discussed ways of keeping the truth of Mathai's status secret, George sat in the witness box shaking her head.

"That is not me," George said. "That is not even my accent."

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George's defense attorney, Mark Sacco, suggested the call was fabricated by George's former brother-in-law following her husband's death in a plane crash in June 2009.

"When you listen to this tape, it's phony," Sacco told jurors in his summation.

Sacco said in George's culture, unlike in the U.S., an Indian wife is not automatically entitled to her late husband's estate.

"Tom George concocted this to take control of his brother's fortune."

Earlier in the week, Mathai took the stand and testified that George made her work seven days a week, from 5 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., at the mansion.

George took issue with the account, denying there was even an employee-employer relationship between the two.

"So she was just like a crazy aunt that you put in the back?" Bellis asked.

"No, I didn't say that," George replied. "I said she was an inconvenience."

George said the family took Mathai in as a "charity case."

"I didn't know if she was a citizen or not," George testified. "A lot of people come from India here, people come and have a green card, or not, I don't know, or they come and stay with a relative, it's very common."

According to George's testimony, Mathai came to the family through a pastor of a local church.

"In the first month we never gave her any money, until we learned about her sons," George said. "And my husband met all their needs. Whenever the children needed money he sent it to them in India." In all, some $22,000 in payments were sent directly to Mathai's son in India.

George, facing felony charges of harboring an illegal alien, spent most of the previous day testifying on her own behalf, repeatedly maintaining that Mathai was never an "employee" in her household.

Under questioning by Sacco, George said she was merely being kind to a woman who had left a brief marriage and had nowhere to go.

Prosecutors claim Mathai was kept a virtual prisoner in the George household for 66 months, where she primarily performed housework and took care of the family's six children.

George said the only time Mathai's immigration status became an issue was when she asked to go to India for her son's wedding.

"I said 'I will get the ticket, give me your paperwork,'" George said. "She said, 'It's coming in the mail.'"

In his summation, Sacco said George was a victim in the case, not a criminal.

"She was accepted as a member of the family," Sacco said of Mathai's status at the George's home. "Over time a bond developed between her and the children."

Sacco said "cultural differences" explain why George did not pursue the matter against her late husband's wishes.

Sacco also said George's state of mind was in question after the death of her husband and her son in a June 2009 plane crash. "Annie (George) came unglued, basically." Sacco said.